U.S. stock-index futures dropped sharply late Thursday on news that a Republicans had cancelled a vote on their back-up measure to prevent the end of the Bush tax breaks for those earning $1 million or less. A little more than half an hour after House Speaker John Boehner said he was killing the vote due to lack of support, the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 1.5%, the S&P 500 futures were 1.4% lower, and Nasdaq futures were off 1.3%. The cancelation appeared to signal dissent in the Republican ranks, reducing the odds on a timely deal to avert the fiscal cliff of austerity measures due to take place at the start of the new year. The news also hit Asian markets trading at the time, with Hong Kong stocks falling and Japanese shares coming off their earlier highs.

Take the vote anyway. It’s important to always identify the sides in these matters. How can boner ever expect to assess democrats with voting for higher taxes if he doesn’t allow them to be seen doing it?

I don’t know why it is people jump straight from an economy tanking to The Road Warrior. It’s not as if any crisis means total crisis. There might just be a few days where people are willing to accept gold rather than sneaking up behind you and bashing your brains in for the clothes on your back.

“Absolutely NOTHING good has happened to the American system for over four years that would provide a solid reason for confidence in the dollar to increase. Our economy (and its data) is a total disaster and getting worse, not better. And the world knows it.”

Agreed. When do you think the bottom will actually fall out? Its not if its when.

I can understand what you’re addressing, and in nearly normal times with rough spots, you’re right.

It does seem to me that we live in a rather precarious situation these days. Something as simple as a major gas shortage could push things over a cliff.

What would your town be like if your major grocery stores couldn’t get resupplied for a month? How would that shortage affect you in other ways? How many businesses could survive for more than a month without sales receipts?

We’ve seen how the closing of a few refineries can affect us. What if even 33% of our refineries went off-line for six months?

While I agree with you for the most part, I don’t think we’re as far from a possible complete short-circuiting of our system, as we would like to think.

Compared to other places around the planet, we’ve been spoiled for a long time. These things can happen here.

I would submit that in highly populated urban centers, things could get ugly in days. Have-nots would be going after haves in weeks.

33
posted on 12/21/2012 6:04:02 AM PST
by DoughtyOne
(How about a waiting period for putting crazies out on the streets, say a million years or so.)

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